Rooms
by sisterstyx
Summary: Donna finds a museum of rooms; a museum of people the Doctor once loved.


"Doctor!" Lord only knew where that bloody spaceman had gotten to. Donna had checked the console room, the kitchen, the library, the gardens, the lab, the wardrobe room, the med bay, the pool, and a number of other rooms (in that order) and had yet to find him. She had been screeching his name for the past half hour, but the Time Lord could not be found.

Donna *hrmph*ed and crossed her hands in anger. She had almost lost herself in the bowels of the ship and, as the TARDIS had not exactly shown an immediate liking to Donna, she was somewhat afraid she would have no help in retracing her steps. She was in a smaller corridor, narrow and without a terribly high ceiling, but cozy and warmly lit. She stood at the top of a very tall spiral staircase and, had she not been in an infinitely trans-dimensional semi-conscious time machine, she would have felt like she was in a forgotten attic of a large house. Indeed there was a sturdy, worn wooden door at the end of the short hall and she let out a heavy sigh before taking the half dozen steps towards it.

She called out softly, rapping her knuckles on the ancient wood before turning the simple brass handle and stepping through.

It led to another corridor, this one much longer than the first, both walls dotted evenly with mismatched doors. The lights were somber and the air was stale and Donna wouldn't have been surprised to find a cobweb or two in a corner—but this was a ship and Donna merely planned on reprimanding the Doctor for not airing her out every once in a while to pass some circulation through the musty halls.

She took a few steps down the corridor, still wanting to find him, doubting he was in one of the rooms, and slightly apprehensive what else might be hidden behind the doors. She called out his name again, loudly.

"Doctor! Come on, I've been lookin' everywhere!" The thick silence that pressed her ears was the only response. "If you're playin' a trick on me you better come out right now space boy!" Again, the lack of life and the feeling of foreboding made Donna slightly nervous. She might not have utter faith in the Doctor, but she trusted him and the TARDIS enough to expect them to have warned her before she approached anything dangers contained within the ship, so she walked on.

She came to the first door and saw a hand-carved name plaque stating the name JAMES. She again knocked and curled her fingers around the knob. Inside the lights were low, emanating from small, nondescript fixtures along the stone walls; the floor too was stone and covered in a well worn and once beautiful hand woven rug. A single sturdy wooden bed was along one wall, covered in thick woolen blankets. A chair and a carved wooden table sat in another corner, bagpipes laid carefully on the table, a plaid laid less carefully over the back of the chair. A wardrobe that matched the bed, table and chair was on the wall closest to her. The room was lacking in personal mementos, but the few things that were there spoke very much of a lived in, practical room—probably inhabited by a Scotsman.

Donna closed the door, thinking it a somewhat odd thing to have found and further questioning the sanity of the man in whom she had entrusted her safety. Yet she had not found what she was looking for, so she continued on until she reached the next door, this time on the other side of the hall.

Here, again, was a name, engraved on an embossed plate in a scrawling script: Susan. Again, she knocked and entered without response. She was immediately reminded of her first dorm room at community college: books and papers pilled and strewn around a desk, a small but adequate light ready to illuminate any project. The bed was made, but was much softer looking then the last. The walls were covered in a mélange of posters of bands, newspaper clippings, handwritten notations and photographs. Donna didn't want to pry, but she leaned forwards to focus on the closest one which, though in black and white, remained crisp and unaltered. In it a pretty young woman with short dark hair and big staring eyes smiled coyly while her arm was being held by an elderly man with long white hair who was looking quite smug, hands holding the lapels of his black suit. She stared at it a moment, noting the other pictures she could see involved one or both of the two people in the one in front of her. Somehow doubting that the elderly man was "James", Donna closed the door with a soft *click* and continued down the hall.

She knocked on a few other doors, and just passed by, guessing that if he was tucked away behind one he would at least answer her rather polite knocks. However, as she continued, she noted every door was different and each had a name written on it: Barbara, Steven, Dodo, Jo... She was getting sick of knocking and moving on and part of her began to wonder if he might not respond, so she decided to start opening the doors again.

The next was "Leela" and Donna knocked and entered. The room reminded her of a jungle. There was a hammock rather than a bed and the only table was a large slab of wood, the bark still rimmed the edges. It was also covered in various rudimentary weapons; mostly knives. The head of some animal resembling a lion, but with three eyes and no ears hung lifeless on the wall and the floor was covered by grass mats. Donna closed the door, almost afraid some kind of jungle creature still lurked within.

The next said "Romana" in very official looking letters. This room was much larger as it contained much more then a bed and table. The walls were starkly white with large rondels punched out. Half the room was a laboratory, colored potions and labeled powders were neatly arranged on tables while large contraptions and machines she could never begin to guess the purposes of littered the other tables. A lab coat hung on a wall next to a swivel chair. The rest of the room contained a desk and numerous bookshelves and a small, cot-like bed in the darkest corner, giving off a somewhat unused feel.

On and on the hall stretched and she lost count of the names and doors—each one different, each one containing a room which, for the most part, looked as though they were still in use; clothes in a hamper, book left half read, bed not made, personal mementos hanging from walls or sitting on shelves.

It was with a sudden shock that Donna finally realized why they seemed somewhat familiar, for she herself had a room on the TARDIS in which she had he personal belongings—her home on the vast ship. She stopped in her tracks when she connected the dots: these were the rooms his former "companions" had occupied during their travels.

And it sent a shiver down her spine, as she stood in the musty hallway, as to why the rooms had filled her with a sense of apprehension. It was just like Pompeii—not the Pompeii they had visited only a week previously, a place of screaming and death—but the Pompeii that would be unearthed in a few millennia; people mummified in the sudden fall of ash, tables littered with dinners half-eaten, children still sleeping in their beds.

They had had no warning, despite her hysteric shouts, just as the people who had lived here had had no warning.

She let out a sob, covering her mouth to contain the tremendous grief that swept through her. They were gone, she knew that, but in whatever manner they had left, most of them hadn't had the opportunity to bring their belongings, to make the bed even.

The Doctor had told her he had lost people, she knew he grieved for his friends and family—the people he had outlived, out-loved— but this was horrifying. Donna's eyes swept back up the ways she'd come, the door at the end a mere smudge of darkness in the gloomy hall. A cemetery.

A cemetery of people—not just their bodies, no, they were probably strewn across the stars, across time—but an avenue of remembered lives. People he couldn't save, people who had wanted to leave, people he had made leave. This was all that was left. One day, she too would be just a room in a dimly lit hall, full of the things she would leave behind, a monument he could visit in his loneliness.

She peered down the hall and noted, with little relief, that she had come almost to the end of the hall. She took a few steps and this time read the name on the door with much more care.

"Captain Jack Harkness" in bold black letters on the metal door. She didn't go in; in fact she was rather disgusted with herself for having looked in the others. They were not her "people" to remember.

A few more steps down, "Mickey" in simple writing with two post-it notes underneath, one with the words "The Idiot" crossed out in what she recognized was the Doctor's handwriting, and the other "The Brave" in another she didn't recognize.

The last door on that side of the hall had "Dr Martha Jones" in a casual scrawl. This was the first name she recognized. He had used her as a warning, trying to dissuade her from coming on board by confessing he had destroyed Martha's life. But knowing that the owner of this room still lived, in a relative timeline of course, raised Donna's spirits slightly, giving her hope that maybe some of the rooms still had owners and that they might one day be re-habited by them.

It was with expectation that she turned around to face the remaining door. As soon as she realized where she was, a part of her had known it would be here and had grown anxious, almost excited at the thought. She was not disappointed, for there, on the white door was a hand painted red rose next to a small black rectangular chalk board which hung from a sturdy nail in the hard wood. The words "Come In" were written in, what Donna recognized as, the same handwriting as the second sticky note on "Mickey"s door.

Donna's fingers itched to turn the knob. The Doctor had never been very forth coming in details about Rose Tyler. Donna knew she had been young, blond, a Londoner, was currently stuck in a parallel world, and that the Doctor loved her more then he could ever put into words.

Without her bidding, her hand rose to stroke the paint, the texture worn smooth under her fingers. The door creaked open a few inches under her light touch and she couldn't help but to pop her head in, the sign did say "Come In" after all.

It was no different then the other rooms. Well, of course it was different—the colors, the open wardrobe, the mirror with pictures plastered on the shiny surface, the smell of strawberries and laundry soap. But there was nothing here that paid homage to the person who had lived here—who was still, so deeply loved by the man who had lost her.

But she stepped lightly into the room, unable or unwilling to let her curiosity be quelled. She hesitated to move anything—to touch anything—but her fingers whispered over the fabrique of the magenta bedspread. She reverently picked up a purple shirt which stuck out from under the bed. She turned around in the center of the room, taking in the ambiance, trying to picture the girl who had lived here.

But she didn't need to. Her eye caught sight of the photos on the vanity and she tiptoed over. There she was. A normal girl, a girl Donna might have passed any number of times in the street. The first picture was of three people, two men on either side of her, one was absolutely devilish, his arm around her waist while the other seemed rather perturbed by their proximity, but still gave a half hearted smile for the camera.

The second was just the first man holding her, probably on the same day, his head tilted to rest on hers as the two suns set in the background. Donna wondered who this man had been, who had never been mentioned. She looked to the next picture where she stood behind the second, more sever looking man; her arms around him as he sat in the jump seat of the console room. Here, his stern face seemed happier, his smile reaching his eyes but not fully masking the sadness in them.

The next must have been taken with her mother, the other blond an older version of her daughter. The one after that had a young black man holding her hand as they sat on the edge of a monument on a busy London day.

And then, she saw a picture she couldn't help but reach out and pickup. In it, photoDoctor was looking at photoRose as though she were the entire universe. It must have been Christmas, for he had on a paper hat and she was obviously laughing at him. Despite this and any other emotions she might be able to read on his face, she could see he was unequivocally happy. She wondered when it had been taken—who had been there, watching them laugh and simply enjoy each other's company, maybe her mother or one of the men from the other pictures. She held the piece of paper in her hands as though it were crystal and liable to break any moment, as though she might disrupt the joy of its occupants.

She looked at it for a long while, forgetting everything else, her heart trying to memorize every square millimeter of the image. But then the electric clock on the bedside table buzzed once, signifying the arbitrary time she must have decided it was on the time machine, and Donna was pulled back into the room in which she stood. She carefully put the picture back, wishing it had a more prominent location then an abandoned room in a musty hallway. She reverently folded the purple shirt and put it on the end of the mussed bed and headed to the door. She looked back at the room, and almost wanted to tell it she was sorry—that it would be like this for eternity, that its owner wasn't coming back and that it merely served as a reminder and housed only echoes.

But she closed the white wooden door without a word, taking in a deep breath in the horrible hallway, blinking back tears as she leaned on the nondescript wall.

She turned and opened the end door which matched the one she had first opened to enter the hall. She didn't look back down the corridor. She didn't want to think of them—of all the people, of all the people they, in turn, had lost and those at home who had lost them. She swore to herself that she would be different; that her room would be left neat and tidy, ready for her return—for she would return.

But as determined as she was, she new that there would be one time, hopefully a very long time from now, one time when she would leave and she would never come back. She new she was doomed from the moment she stepped on board; doomed to leave him, to become another room in that hallway—she didn't have forever to give him.

She managed to find her way back to the console room without a single thought as to where she was going. She didn't even notice that he was there, fiddling with the controls.

"Oh, Donna, sorry about that, had to find a replacement bulb for the TARDIS," she looked up at him, not really hearing a word, "You'd be amazed at how difficult it is to find a light bulb in a trans-dimensional time and space ship. I won't even begin to tell you how hard it is to actually change the bulb; have to do it from the inside-" she walked over and sat on the jump seat. "Are you alright?"

"Hmm, yeah, I'm fine, me," she looked up at him and immediately affected an air of nonchalance. He looked at her a moment before returning his attention to his knobs and levers.

Donna couldn't really process it. She could accept it, she thought, but the actual concept she had a hard time fathoming. It was the same way a person can accept that a star is thousands and millions of light years away, but there's no real way for them to conceive exactly what that means. Donna could accept that the Doctor had had dozens of traveling companions, could accept that they were gone for various reasons, could accept that the only things that remained to him of them were there rooms. She could come to terms with that.

But what made her heart ache in her chest and her eyes prick as she looked at him concentrating in the green glow, was the unfathomable truth that every time he asked some one to come with him, he already knew that all he would have in the end, was an empty room and his lone memories to fill it with.

She didn't look back down the corridor. She didn't want to think of them—of all the people, of all the people they, in turn, had lost and those at home who had lost them. She swore to herself that she would be different; that her room would be left neat and tidy, ready for her return—for she would return.

But as determined as she was, she new that there would be one time, hopefully a very long time from now, one time when she would leave and she would never come back. She new she was doomed from the moment she stepped on board; doomed to leave him, to become another room in that hallway—she didn't have forever to give him.

Donna had been right. There came a day, a wonderful, amazing, terribly day, when she left, never to return to her deep lilac sheets, oak sleigh bed, accumulated nick-nacks, and alien memorabilia. Just as so many of her predecessors, it was sudden, and as with so many more, unfair.

The Doctor returned to her room only once, more times then he had for many of the rooms, before it too vanished from the brightly lit halls of his ship to the drafty recesses of a too long corridor. The Doctor did this in a naïve attempt, a childish desire, to find something to leave with her as he took her away from everything she had grown to love, everything she had done, everything she had become. His fingers picked up so many of the worthless trinkets in her room, putting each back where he found it, racing in both mind and body to find some way of making it up to her.

For, Donna was unlike any other companion whose rooms hers would soon join, for she had not left willingly, nor had he made her leave (well he had, but not like with some others), she hadn't died or even been trapped in a parallel world. He wasn't sure if this wasn't worse then that fate—being separated by a hellish void. For, unlike too few companions, she would continue about her daily life, no worse for wear for having met him.

Wasn't that better? Wasn't that the best future he could give her? Wasn't that the only future open to her? A future, and a past, without him.

He had to tell himself it was better then death. He truly believed, in his soul, it was, otherwise he would have given her the choice. He had given Cybermen, demons, witches, suns, plant-creatures and even Daleks a choice. He would have, he tried to convince himself as he left her room, he would have let her mind break and wither under the strain of the knowledge it contained if he had thought there was no other options. She hadn't been thinking clearly when she begged him not to do it. Her brain had already begun to suffer, he had seen the proof himself. He had said so many permanent good byes that day, he wouldn't say another.

And he did say goodbye. He had found nothing in her room to leave with her that wouldn't remind her of what she had lost, but that meant enough to her to remind her of what she could be. He had to settle for instilling his belief in her mother and grandfather.

As with too few companions, he said goodbye. As with none before her, she dismissed him from all thought or recollection within minutes of his departure. She didn't listen to the last sounds of the TARDIS slipping into the vortex of space and time. She didn't think of the skinny man with big hair ever again.

But every now and again, she had this annoying worry that her bed was unmade, and every time she'd go up to her room to look, she found it was, but it never relieved the little distress in the back of her mind.

The Doctor left the average house on the average street and didn't look back. He walked into the TARDIS and moved on. As he always did. The first time he walked down the brightly lit corridor, he tried not to notice her room was gone. The next time he passed the empty patch of hall, he cheered at the memory that he had at least made her bed the last time he had been in her room, just as she would have wanted it.


End file.
